


Perspectives: Majora's Mask

by DE_Winters



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Headcanon, Illnesses, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 16:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10745364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DE_Winters/pseuds/DE_Winters
Summary: Sometimes all we need is a change in perspective...A collection of one-shots from side characters.





	Perspectives: Majora's Mask

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everybody!
> 
> Welcome to my first fanfiction on AO3!  
> This is the first Perspectives one-shot that I finished and liked, and I couldn't wait to share it with you all, so here we are!  
> More will eventually be added, but I will not post a story that is not completed.  
> I have a list of Perspectives I want to do, but if you have any characters and situations that you would like to see, I will take your requests (eventually, I promise).  
> I am also hoping to do similar collections for Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time, and Wind Waker, so if you enjoy this, be on the lookout for anything from those! 
> 
> Constructive criticism only, please.
> 
> I think that's all I have, so enjoy!
> 
> Oh yeah, and I do not own Majora's Mask or any of the characters. They all belong to Nintendo.

Tatl didn’t know how many cycles they had gone through by now.

But it was fine. 

When the Goddess of Time’s spell set them back in Clock Town, Link staggered and braced himself on the Clock Tower, blinking hard.

Yep. Totally fine.

Okay, so they were exhausted. It wasn’t as though they got any rest when they turned back time. Sometimes, Tatl was able to catch a few moments of sleep here and there, but the only place for her to do so was inside Link’s hat, and the kid ran _everywhere_. It seemed as though every time he found a new person to help, he had to help them all during that cycle. This past one alone, he rescued the wounded soldier, saved the old lady’s bombs, helped the girls at the ranch (he could never leave those two alone, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know why), taught the Rosa Sisters Kamaro’s dance, broke the Gibdo Man’s curse, and then went to the Stone Tower Temple.

Which was, by that point, a really stupid idea. The third day was nearly over, and Link kept getting so distracted by the rumbling earth that he kept creating the wrong statue of himself with the Elegy of Emptiness, and fell down the tower to his near death (thank the Giants for bottled healing fairies and Red Potion) twice. 

And it had all been a waste anyway, because he hadn’t even made it to the actual temple, so all the screaming and twinklated cursing had been for nothing, and now they had start all over again.

And Link was still looking at his map.

He normally didn’t take this long. “Link,” Tatl said. She fluttered around his head, but he didn’t look up. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to figure out how to get to Stone Tower from here,” he answered, staring intently at the parchment. “We went there from Romani Ranch last time, but this doesn’t make any sense.” He rubbed his finger along the drawn fields connecting Clock Town to the ranch and Ikana Canyon. “I don’t remember going this way to get there.”

“After all the times you’ve looked at this map, _now_ is when you start having trouble?” she snapped, flying impatiently onto his shoulder and _oh_.

“Link, you’re holding the map upside down.”

The confused frown that cross Link’s face should have been funny, but the way he squinted at the large, neat letters the crazy balloon man had written made Tatl squirm uncomfortably in midair.

Maybe things really weren’t fine after all.

Link finally nodded and turned the map around, and when he looked up to thank her, she barely kept from cringing.

He looked _horrible_.

His eyes were bloodshot, half-closed, and gleaming now that they’d caught the sunlight. He was sweating too, red-faced despite the cool breeze.

That wasn’t just exhaustion. He had a fever, a bad one.

And he was still pouring over the right-side-up map as though he’d even make it to Ikana on his skinny, trembling legs.

“Uh, Link,” she started, licking her lips. Her voices always sounded strange to her when it got soft like this. “Look, I’m beat, and if you’re trying to read maps upside down, so are you. Why don’t we grab that reservation at Stock Pot and crash for a while?”

“I’m okay, and you can sleep in my hat if you want – I’ll walk slower,” he said absently, and then blinked at her. His face got all scrunchy when he was confused and jeez, it somehow made him look even sicker and about ten times more pitiful. “Wait, aren’t you the one who keeps telling me to hurry up?”

Shoot. He had a good point.

Not that he ever listened to her, but he still had a point.

She’d never tell him this out loud, but despite all her quips, Link was honestly not stupid, arrogant, or prideful. He wasn’t bragging – he legitimately thought he could go and clear the Stone Tower Temple and defeat the last monster.

Well great Giants and pixie dust. She couldn’t just let him kill himself.

“Suit yourself,” she said casually, casting a quick glance up at the clock. 6:30. Perfect. “Cut through East Clock Town and go out that way. Foot traffic’s lighter there at this time of day, and I want some quiet.”

She flew up to his head as he started jogging, but held onto the outside of his cap instead of slipping underneath it. He didn’t seem to notice. Oh well. At least, even feverish, he had some level of sense, and he took her advice. She kept still, taking slow, deep breaths to sound like she was sleeping, and watched.

Link was halfway across East Clock Town when she spotted a familiar shock of red hair out for her quick morning walk. Perfect.

Once Anju was in earshot, Tatl silently slipped off the cap and rammed her body as fast she could into the hollow of Link’s knee. Both of them.

Link was a lot bigger than her, but for a human or Hylian or whatever he said he was, he was small, so he stumbled, off-balance, and sprawled across the cobblestone with a loud yell.

Tatl darted back towards his hat so she could pretend to come out by his ear. “You’d think that after all these runs, you’d remember where the dog was,” she laughed, trying to ignore the way her body was starting to throb. Link was easy to knock around, but she did hit him really fast, so _ow_. “Come on, get up, before somebody runs you over.”

“The dog…isn’t…here,” Link groaned, but that was impossible to verify amidst all the people. He got up on his hands and knees and tried to stand, but he couldn’t. His arms trembled as he pushed on them, and his head drooped towards the ground as though it was too heavy to hold up. Tatl watched, struggling not to smirk as realization started to cross Link’s face.

“Are you all right, little boy?” came a gentle voice as Anju appeared out of the crowd and crouched beside Link. She took his arms and helped him to his feet, and brushed some of the gravel off his leg. When she reached up to straighten out his tunic, she gasped.

“Oh, you have such a fever!” she exclaimed, her palms pressed against his flushed cheeks and red forehead. Link barely had time to blink at her and open his mouth to reply before she took his hand and started towards the Stock Pot Inn. “Come inside, you need some rest. Are your parents in town? You shouldn’t be outside.”

From then on, Tatl just sat back and watched as Link bemusedly accepted Anju’s care. She sat him on a crate in the kitchen, sponged the gravel out of the grooves in his hands, bandaged his scraped knees, and fed him something hot and spicy despite him assuring her that there was no tightness in his chest. After telling her his name and admitting that he didn’t have family to contact, Anju insisted that he stay in the inn until he was well again. Tatl thought she’d give them the Knife Chamber that was under the Goron’s name (seriously, what were the odds?), but when Link _finally_ fell asleep as Anju washed his face with cool water, she carried him upstairs and tucked him into her own bed.

Then Tatl flopped onto the pillow and fell asleep too because hey, Link wasn’t the only one who was exhausted.

She woke with afternoon sunlight streaming gold through the window and every muscle in her little body screaming with soreness. Slowly, Tatl peeled herself off the pillow, stretching each limb out until her wings could flutter enough to keep her in the air without falling.

“You have boney knees,” she griped.

Link was completely oblivious to both her complaining and her movement. More sweat had beaded on his face and his cheeks were still flushed, but he looked a least a _little_ more comfortable as he slept, so maybe the fever had broken some.

Tatl dragged herself over to the window and settled in the frame, which would have been achingly uncomfortable if it hadn’t been warmed by the sun. This high up, she could see the old lady who would get robbed at midnight and the postman shuffling around after delivering Kafei’s letter. Guru-Guru’s music just barely pierced through the glass, mixing with the sound of the dancer’s feet pacing heavily in the hallway.

Tatl sighed. She’d never admit this out loud either, but the sight of the people at the start of a new cycle made her feel as helpless as it did Link. She wasn’t heartless; it wasn’t like it was easy to go past Snowhead and see it buried in winter, or know that Zora eggs were dying in the hands of pirates while she helped Link aim his bow at an Octorok. It felt as though whatever they did was completely pointless, since it all got undone anyways.

And yet.

Despite the fact that Link lost all his arrows, Rupees, and potions every time he reset the cycle, he still had all the masks he collected, all the items and bottles and Heart Pieces too. Not to mention that even though the boss monsters came back, the Giants stayed free.

Tatl wasn’t ungrateful or anything, but what the heck did that mean?

There was a rustle of blankets behind her, and she turned in time to see Link stir, sit up, and look around. “Tatl,” he said as he rubbed his eyes, voice heavy and rough, “what time is it?”

“Almost three,” she said. The Clock Tower could be seen from pretty much everywhere in Clock Town. “Still on the first day, though.”

His eyes popped open at that, still glassy and bloodshot, though not as bad as before. “ _Three?_ ” He threw back the covers and scrambled for the edge of the bed.

“Oi!” Tatl snapped, flying over. “Get back in that bed, you dolt, you’re still— _ow!_ ”

She rammed herself into his forehead, which was a very, very bad idea. Her body tensed up again and her eyes shut against the pain, but before she could fall, she felt Link’s palm catch her. 

“Your forehead is boney too!” she yelled.

“Sorry,” he said. “But we need to go. I won’t be able to clear Stone Tower in time and I don’t know what I’m doing to the timeline by resetting and—”

Anju had put his little boots on the floor, but when he bent down reach them, all the fevered blood rushed to his face and Tatl could almost _see_ his head throb. He reeled back, clutching the blankets with his free hand.

“Would you stay still for just a second before you hurt yourself?” Tatl quipped, repositioning herself on his palm. It was a little sweaty, but it was very warm and much more comfortable than the window frame. “And did you ever think that you’re not actually screwing up the timeline?”

“What?”

She was about to roll her eyes before she realized that he honestly had no idea what she was talking about. Now that she thought about it, the two of them had never discussed this. 

They didn’t talk about a lot of things, really.

So she told him about her musings at the window (leaving out her confession of helplessness, of course), and for a moment it seemed as though his fevered brain had absorbed none of it. But then all of the tension went out of his shoulders.

“I never did think about that,” he said. “You really believe it?”

“Well, something’s gotta be keeping the Giants free no matter what. Maybe that’s just the start. Maybe more things will come together in the end.” She pushed herself up, looking at him. “And even if that’s not true, all these personal tragedies won’t really matter if the world ends. Once we fix that, we’ll have more time to…help everyone, or whatever you want.”

“Well, most people,” Link said, looking at the window with a strange, wistful look on his face.

“Sure, most people, fine. But it’s not as though you’ll doom everything here and now, so just stay in bed for a while, will you? You won’t be able to help anyone if you kill yourself before you leave Clock Town.”

“I didn’t think it was _that_ bad,” Link said, but he did flip the pillow to the fresh side and carefully laid Tatl on it. “But maybe it was, if you’re this worried.” He smiled, and it looked exhausted. “You don’t normally care this much, Tatl.”

Tatl grunted. The cool fabric of the pillow felt quite relaxing around her sore body. “You’re feverish. You’re delusional. Go back to sleep.”

She shut her own eyes, and then his warm finger brushed against the tips of her tiny ones, ever so gently. “Thank you.”

She heard him flap the blankets to air them out, and when she finally unblocked her tongue enough to say, “You’re welcome,” he was already curled underneath them and asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone knows how to indent paragraphs with AO3 HTML, let me know, because I'm not well-versed enough in that.  
> If I need to do anything else for a disclaimer, please let me know that too. I don't want to leave you guys so soon due to a technicality.  
> Check out my profile for more info!


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